all a pleasant one.  I dreaded it as an ordeal.  I wondered if it would be possible for us to retain the same love and affection for one another after such intimate relations were established.  This was a recurrence of the fallacious notion that there was something inherently indecent in sexual things.  I am in hopes that other ideas are replacing this wrong one, in the minds of the younger generation, as the result of the saner and franker discussion of sex.  By a great effort, I had practically stopped masturbating.  At times I felt almost maddened by desire.  But never did the prospect of marriage seem desirable from this point of view.  Up to the very day of our wedding my affection for my betrothed seemed free from sexual desire.  But my physical being was craving sexual companionship.

“Theoretically I knew a great deal of the nature of intercourse.  Practically I was absolutely ignorant.  In some ways I was better informed, on matters that a new husband should know, than the average man entering the married life.  A physician’s library had been at my disposal, and I had read somewhat extensively on physiology and hygiene.  My chosen lines of study had given me a theoretical knowledge of the anatomy of the female genital organs that was fairly thorough.  I knew a little about the physiology of reproduction and rather less of intercourse.  Fortunately, I learned in the course of my reading that the first sexual approaches were likely to be quite painful to a woman, and that great care should be exercised at this time.  I tried to put into practice what little I had learned in theory and I imagine that we got through the introductory attempts with less than the average difficulties.  Our first efforts were not satisfactory to either of us.  My wife was absolutely unprepared so far as any definite knowledge of the act was concerned.  I sincerely hope that the prudish notions of the past generations will give way to more sensible views in the future, and that the girl becoming a wife will be just as chaste, but wiser in matters of such importance to her happiness.  I presume that my timidity was a valuable asset at this time; for I was afraid to force matters in any way, and time and repeated attempts finally overcame our difficulties.  And when our sexual relations were once established, the whole tenor of my life was changed.  All the former sexual unrest disappeared.  My former feeling toward sexual relations was altered.  They no longer seemed that which, though very desirable, was yet necessarily indecent.  Fortunately, after the first few weeks, they have been quite pleasurable to my wife.  I am sure that our sexual life since marriage has been a large factor in deepening the love that has made our married life an ideal one.  As I look back at the first year of marriage, I wonder that we got through it so well.  My knowledge of sexual hygiene was a strange mixture of fact and nonsense.  If the frequency of acts of